Five months!

Five months - April 22, 2014

There's so much personality in this picture. I love it! It describes the sweet, silly side of Sam's personality that continues to emerge.

I think that his charm is probably his biggest defining characteristic at five months old. He loves smiling at people, and wrinkling up his nose, and kicking his legs when he's excited. He doesn't mind being held by anybody and everybody, and flashes huge smiles at people that he recognizes.

We are definitely in a new stretch when it comes to recognition. He definitely knows who certain people are - Matt, me, the office staff at church - and reacts distinctly and happily to them. In the last few days, he has also started figuring out how to reach out to someone who he wants to go to. He doesn't yet reach out to be picked up from his crib or the floor or car seat. But if he is in your arms and sees someone else that he'd rather be held by, he'll lean in their direction with his arms out.

Sam is proficient in rolling over! Both ways! He still doesn't love being on his belly all that much, and "forgets" how to roll back over when he is on his tummy and upset about it. But when he's in a good mood, he'll sometimes roll to his tummy and play quietly with his toys for a few minutes before getting frustrated. When he is especially worked up, he'll scoot around on his belly.

He's also started rolling over lots in his crib. We haven't swaddled him with his arms in in a number of weeks now. He likes sleeping on his side and belly more than on his back. It makes me a little nervous, but I know that he can roll himself back over, pick up his head, or turn his head to the side if he can't breathe well.

Sleeping still isn't going as well as I'd like. It's hard to believe that, for a few weeks around three months old, Sam would sleep eight or nine hours in a stretch! These days, we have a pretty consistent pattern of going down around 8:30 p.m., waking up and fussing for about ten minutes around midnight, and then waking up hungry around 3:00 a.m., at which point I usually just bring him into bed to feed him until we both fall asleep. He'll then sleep next to me until 7:30 a.m. or so. I don't mind the 3:00 a.m. feeding. I just wish that he wouldn't wake up before that. I also wish he would take naps. He really doesn't nap consistently at all. Today, bless him, he took a 40 minute nap both this morning and this afternoon. But that's not the usual.

Sam is incredibly focused on the world around him these days. He will hold up his hands in front of his face and stare at them for long stretches. He loves looking at himself in the mirror. This morning, he was obsessed with playing with my friend Jenine's scarf as she held him in her lap. He knows how to grab for things that interest him. Often, those things find their way immediately into his mouth. He likes to feel and taste things with his mouth, and drools a ton. We don't think he's teething yet, even though he chews on anything and everything.

One of the biggest developments in the last few weeks is his recognition of food. All of the sudden, he knows that food is food...and he wants some! Yesterday, I was eating a brownie with a fork, and he watched intently as each bite made its way into my mouth. If he's sitting on your lap at the table, he's likely to try to grab food off your plate. We'll start him on rice cereal in another couple weeks...I think he's going to love it! But for now, we are still exclusively breastfeeding.

Sam's favorite toys these days include his Simba stuffed animal (all the way from Disney World - thanks MorMor and Grandpa!), his crinkly Winnie the Pooh, and his blue and green Oball rattle. We also bought him a baby gym that he sometimes loves and sometimes has no patience for.

Sam can still squeeze into the stretchiest of his 3 month clothes, though the pants are laughably short. We're mostly in 3-6 month clothes at this point. We're also at the point where we can, when we want, put him in his stroller without the infant carrier on top, if we recline it back far enough. He hasn't quite shown interest or aptitude at sitting on his own, but strapped into the stroller and leaning back, he is just fine.

Sam, you are one happy, busy little boy these days. I love watching you explore your world. I get a kick out of the way that you fixate on pieces of the world around you and try to make sense of them. I love the way that you laugh out loud when we rub your belly, and the way that you flash your winning smile at me (and then bury your face in my shoulder). You are a lovable handful, and we are so lucky to be your proud parents.

Also...we think you're pretty darn cute, which doesn't hurt anything.